CHHADAKHAI - THE FESTIVAL OF FOOD

In Sarala Mahabharata it is said that the last five days of the holy month of Kartik – called panchuka (the five days from ekadasi, the 11^th day, to purnima, the full moon day, of the month of Kartik) in colloquial Odia – are so very holy that even the crane gives up eating fish. Many Odias, who do not observe the kartika brata (ritual fasting in the month of kartik), give up eating non-vegetarian food in that holy month. Those who cannot manage without meat and fish for a whole month give it up during panchuka or they at least say so to their neighbours and friends if the need arises. Those who are far too fond of non-vegetarian food to live without it for full five days, give it up on just one day, Kartik purnima, which is the last day of the month. In many villages even today it can be embarrassing for one to be found out that one had not observed the restriction even for one day.

People look forward to the following day. Most eagerly, in fact - both those who observed the restriction and those who did not. Because on that day, called chhadakhai, one is expected to eat some non-vegetarian food. The word chhadakhai roughly means something like this: eat what you have not been eating during the holy month. But for all practical purposes it means “eat meat”. Sometimes the waiting for meat can become a bit longer, as in 2012. The day following Kartika purnima was the first Thursday of the month of Margasira, the day of manabasa, which is a puja dedicated to goddess Lakshmi. It is observed on every Thursday in the month of Margasira. Meat eating is expressly forbidden on this day. Those who do not observe manabasa could have their chhadakhai on that day, but every single household in Odisha observes this ritual. Who would not want to please the goddess of prosperity!  In 2012 the following day was the day dedicated to goddess Santoshi, again a day of fasting for women. On this day meat or fish is not cooked at home. The male members of the family may eat out in case they are so keen on meat. For many, it was technically – “technically”, because chhadakhai is a family observance, not a “part-of-the family” observance - their chhadakhai day last year but the family observed it only on the following day. Thus last year, chhadakhai was observed by many two days after Kartik purnima.

The price of meat and fish soars on the day of chhadakhai. So those who have the necessary storing facilities buy meat and fish, especially fish and sometimes live small fish, some two or three, sometimes even five, days in advance and store them. Those who do not, especially the villagers, where bonds between people are generally stronger, choose a different option. Some of them buy a goat ahead of chhadakhai and share its meat on that day. There are a few, city dwellers and villagers both, who do not approve of such a practice; they think that even keeping meat or fish at home during panchuka is ritualistically unclean, but at the same time they cannot afford to buy the required quantity of meat or fish for the family on the day of chhadakhai. So they observe the ritual with eggs or some very small fish. Those who cannot afford these, eat a dish of dry fish, which is less expensive. Some merely put a few fried dry fish in the vegetable curry or in dalma (a dish of lentils cooked with plenty of vegetables). That serves the demands of the custom. Some clever ones do precisely this on the chhadakhai day and after one or two days, when the price of meat and fish comes down to normal, they have their real chhadakhai.

Although chhadakhai is a family observance (to that extent it is very much unlike a “carnival”), these days some star hotels, mainly in Bhubaneswar, the State capital, provide the chhadakhai meal, which contains, in addition to meat and fish dishes, fish pickles, and preparations of dry fish, in fried or mashed form (chutney). The meal is quite expensive and naturally those who can afford go to these restaurants. The special occasion meal has become a prestige symbol too. So some city dwellers, who cannot really afford it, go there to show those who take note of such things that they have “arrived”. There are others with a religious bent of mind who would like to have non-vegetarian food as prasad (sacred food already offered to the deity) on this day. They have the food cooked in particular temples and offered to the deity. Many minor goddesses in Odisha who have not been totally assimilated into the mainstream Hinduism in the form of, say, Durga, or have not been Vaishnavized or come under the Buddhist influence, are offered non-vegetarian food, not just on some particular days or during some very special worship. Thus the chhadakhai food is ritualized, in a manner of speaking.

There are no bratas or oshas (roughly, ritualistic fasting dedicated to particular gods and goddesses, especially the latter) which do not have a katha, a story, associated with it – a story that celebrates the concerned goddess (or god). So is there a story connected with chhadakhai? There is nothing in print. Significant studies on bratas and oshas do not even mention this very popular festival. In any case, what can one presume to be the nature of such a story? Can it be like a typical osha or brata story where the offended goddess punishes the offender and forces him or her to worship her? Which goddess can such a story be dedicated to? It is a celebration of eating; it is about withdrawal of prohibition about food and about eating meat, and isn’t it that meat belongs to the rajasik or tamasik category (its precise categorization depending on its quality and its cooking, etc.) of food, which is not what is traditionally believed to encourage the better part of one’s nature and virtuous living?

One story connected with chhadakhai I recently heard from a friend from western Odisha who had heard it from his mother, and it is more or less like this: when Sita returned to Ayodhya, she expressed her thanks, in the form of a boon she granted her, to Trijata, Vibhishan’s sister, who had looked after her so well during her confinement in Lanka. She told her that she would be offered worship on the day following Kartik purnima and that people would eat non-vegetarian food on that day, the food the asuras (anti-gods, roughly, demons) are supposed to be very fond of. On the day of chhadakhai, my mother – we are from coastal Odisha - used to worship Jaya and Bijoya, the gatekeepers of Vaikuntha, the abode of Vishnu. Jaya and Bijoya were born as asuras three times in the mortal world because of a curse and Vishnu had to descend to this world to kill them and thereby release them from their asuric births and eventually restore them to their position in his abode. In both the stories, chhadakhai has some asuric connection. Thus after a month’s worship of the gods comes a day when one must worship the anti-god, never mind and more importantly, note that the anti-god in question is connected in some way to the Supreme Lord. The observance of kartika brata and of chhadakhai on the day after the completion of the brata suggests that the spiritual and the non-spiritual together make life complete, so both are to be celebrated.  

But the meaning of the occasion, whatever it was when it began – what is suggested above or something else - is completely forgotten after years and years of its observance, and what has remained today is the food part of it. Tasty meat and fish preparations are made and what surely makes them tastier is the fact that with the restrictions over, one could enjoy non-vegetarian food without any sense of guilt or embarrassment. One gives up meat and fish but the thought of meat and fish agitates the mind, and the stage comes where the body and the mind are completely separated; as the body observes the restrictions, the mind is filled with thoughts of meat and fish. Chhadakhai releases one from this painful state of being.

THINKING ABOUT AN INCOME TAX MATTER

One day, way back in the mid-seventies, a self-styled linguist from abroad, whose hatred towards Noam Chomsky was incomprehensible to us to say the least, was giving us, graduate students of linguistics, what he called a critique of Chomsky’s linguistics. During the lecture, he spent some time telling us about how Chomsky was not paying income tax and how the clever man was gaining from this act in terms of bank balance and favourable public attention, both. No wonder, he said, that such a person was doing the kind of linguistics he was doing. We were unimpressed partly because we failed to see the connection, but far more because Chomsky’s income, income tax and bank account were of no interest to us in the first place.

The fact of the matter is this: discussing an issue on communication, Chomsky wrote in his Reflections on Language that there was a time he was not paying part of his income tax in protest against some policies of the US government (relating to the Vietnam War). And like some others too, he used to write a detailed and careful letter to the Bureau of internal Revenue every year justifying his non-payment of the same. He was aware that no one was going to read his note and that his income tax papers might simply be fed into a computer. Umberto Eco’s shopping list (the subject matter of an earlier post in this blog) and Chomsky’s letter to the Bureau are similar in that their respective authors believed that neither piece was going to be read by others, so neither had any intention to communicate while writing the same. However, differing from Eco and reflecting on his own experience, Chomsky observed that although sometimes an author may have no communicative intention while writing something, he would still writes with sincerity and care, and would not ignore clarity. It is a different matter that some people do indeed read such writing. In the context of the same discussion in his Reflections on Language, Chomsky said that he wrote The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory as a graduate student assuming that it would never be read by anyone or would ever be published. We know that it was published twenty years after it was written. As for its readers, the eminent linguist James D. McCawley told us in a lecture what was in circulation in the relevant quarters those days, namely that when it was first reviewed, even the reviewer of the book had not read it fully. We do not have to take him literally though. In any case, it is difficult to agree with Chomsky that when he was writing his lengthy manuscript he was very much aware that it would not be “read by anyone”; every graduate student writes his thesis for at least his examiners. We of course need not take his words too literally and interpret “anyone” as “anyone other than the thesis adviser and the examiners”, but then it makes the point he was making weak. 

An author may not have any particular individual or any group of persons in mind while writing, but to say that he writes knowing full well that no one would read his writing is difficult to swallow, when he does not make his writing completely inaccessible. There is of course a coherent answer to the question as to why at all, if one knows that no one is going to read his piece, one writes logically, clearly and in an intelligible manner. The answer is that it has to do with the personality of the author. If he is the sincere and responsible type, it would be reflected in his writing, if he is a bully or a confused person, it will also be reflected in his writing. It has thus nothing to do with his communicative intention or the absence of it.

One can never be sure that one’s writing will never be read by anyone, except when one destroys the same in time. The well known Indian author, Raja Rao, who wrote in English, left behind him much unpublished writing which during his life time he probably did not want to publish for some reason. Now it appears that those who have access are trying to have some of them published in some form. From the fact that Raja Rao did not publish them one cannot conclude that he did not want any one  to read them ever. If that were his resolve, then he should not have preserved his writing in the first place. The fact that he did would suggest that he had no problems if the same were read after his death. Similarly, from the very fact that Chomsky sent his letters to the Bureau of Internal Revenue one would think that he certainly would not have minded if someone there read them. One would never be persuaded to accept the claim that an author wrote for himself, for one’s own satisfaction or for the fulfilment of one’s creative urge, so long as he preserves his writing.

That is why the only stuff I believe  that are written without any communicative intention are the shy, self-conscious, conservative teen aged lover’s poems or billet doux, which readily end up, torn into tiny pieces, in the wastepaper basket.          

THE SPECIAL ONE

As far as I am concerned, there are two Jose Mourinhos; one is the self-styled Special One, as he is known in the football community and the other, who I call The Special One without any restrictive epithet. It seems somehow this second Mourinho has not received due attention.

Soon after his team Real Madrid won the Spanish League, 2011-12, Mourinho started announcing that the 2012 Ballon d’Or should be awarded to Cristiano Ronaldo of his team because he is the best player in the world. The first El Clasico of the 2012-13 edition of La Liga was played in Nou Camp and ended in a 2-2 draw. Ronaldo and Messi scored the goals for their respective clubs. The quality of football on display was very good. Messi’s free kick that beat the wall and the goalkeeper Casillas was a special treat for the football lovers. And as for Mourinho, he said that he enjoyed the match as did the thousands on the stand and millions on television across continents.

Mourinho said that talk as to who between Ronaldo and Messi is better should be banned because they belong to another planet, and that this year’s Ballon d’Or should be given to a Real Madrid player (since in this sentence he did not mention Ronaldo, could he have meant that anyone would do? May be we are being unfair to him.) because it is Real Madrid who won the toughest football league in the world. He said this despite the much talked of and widely published sadness of Ronaldo. One reason the player was sad was that he felt that his club had not supported him on such matters as the Ballon d’Or award for him. One does not know how he felt after his manager did not distinguish between Messi and him: “both belong to another planet.” Period. But soon Mourinho changed his mind and came up with a different statement. Incidentally, the provocation for this new one was an observation made by the Barca manager who said that Messi is the best on the planet. Mourinho could not keep quiet.

He said that if Messi was the best on the planet, Ronaldo was the best in the universe. He was from the Mars. We know that it is rhetorical language. Now rhetorical statements must not be checked for their truth value; the same must be taken neither literally nor seriously. They have to be enjoyed; so let none of us ask whether football is played in the Mars and elsewhere in the universe.

In days he came up with yet another observation, as reported in The Times of India on October 15, 2012: “if Cristiano doesn’t win the Ballon d’Or this year, it is only because he’s not nice.” – a really fascinating observation that would delight a student of pragmatics and of communication. It could be seen as a criticism of the voters who would not vote for Ronaldo; they are being charged with taking into consideration non-football factors. It could also be seen as a mildly affectionate criticism of Ronaldo; his manager wanted him to realize that because of his poor public manners, he might not be getting his due. It could also be a clear statement of a fact, meant to be viewed independent of Ballon d’Or or any other award – that whatever his football skills, Ronaldo is not nice. Depending on a host of factors including (perhaps crucially)one’s attitude to Mourinho, one would attribute one of these meanings to him. Anyway, as for us, we are not concerned with the semantics of his statement here. We only note one remarkable feature of this observation, namely that for once there is no explicit mention of Messi here.

Mourinho attempts to justify his choice: if Messi gets the award it would be for the fourth time, when Ronaldo would have got it only once (2008). Besides, Messi has been playing in the same team for years, whereas Ronaldo came from England and for two years was with Real Madrid, which was not winning trophies. Besides Messi’s goals did not lead to his team’s winning a trophy, Ronaldo’s did – Read Madrid became the La Liga winners. Barca might have won the Intercontinental Cup and the Super Cup, but those were small things and counted to nothing. Here we are not evaluating the merit of his assertions, although we have things to say about these. How many voters would be persuaded by these observations is a matter for speculation.

As for Mourinho’s remarks mentioned above, one would find some lack of consistency at the level of detail – on the one hand, he would like talk about between Messi or Ronaldo who is better to be banned, and on the other hand, he keeps saying Ronaldo is the best. His remarks are aggressive, provocative and they sound loud and are crudely partisan. He punctuates his observations with punch line- like remarks and indulges in rhetoric – it does not matter that the same lacks novelty.

But Mourinho is not a football journalist or an academic who writes authoritative books on football. Neither is he professionally or otherwise committed to create beautiful expressions that attract attention. He is the manager of a well known football team, one of the very best in the world, and one of his jobs is to advertise his team and sell its achievements. In a football interview, most in the audience do not often care to think beyond what is being said, so they do not see the inconsistencies which come to notice when the earlier remarks are also taken into consideration. Like the proverbial representative of a country who enjoys the freedom to tell half-truths for his country, the manager can package facts and distortions both to advance the interests of his team. Who, among the managers today, does it better than him? When Mourinho fails to sell his point of view to his target audience, it could mean that persuasive strategies have their limitation. He is a manager who likes to talk and talks forcefully – he, of all his counterparts in these times, remains in the news as much as the team he is in charge of or its stars. When a football team wins a trophy or even an important match, everyone in the football community knows today that a good part of the credit goes to the manager. There is none that drives this point home even as half forcefully as does Mourinho. And as a communicator speaking up for his team, he is special. In this he is “The Special One”, not “the self-styled Special One”.   

THINKING ABOUT THE SHOPPING LIST

Humans use mostly language to communicate. There are of course other modes of communication that they use, but to only a limited extent. For this reason some tend to think that language (which is not really created by humans but is basically an “object” of nature, as Noam Chomsky has so persuasively argued) exists for communication; with a little reflection we can see that this idea is clearly unsatisfactory. We use flowers and leaves for many purposes but to say that these exist so that we humans can use them is being not just illogical but extremely arrogant as well. What is it if not sheer arrogance if one believes that nature exists for the use of humans? This is essentially what Bertrand Russell had observed more than half a century ago in a similar context. It is sometimes said that language is used, not for communication alone but for self-expression as well. When one uses it for self-expression, one has no intention to share with anyone what he expresses. But isn’t self-expression itself a kind of communication, an interaction with the other - a philosophically inclined person would ask - between the self and the soul? As for those who cannot accommodate soul in their view of things, there is the inner voice which most, more often than not, tend to ignore and sometimes only grudgingly listen to? But why think of all this, when we have an excellent example in the form of a shy young person who writes soulful poems but does not share them with anyone at all? While composing them he might (in fact, does!) have somebody in mind who inspires his poetic self and to whom his literary output is secretly dedicated. But there isn’t even communication intention in this case, let alone communication. But here too one can argue, using “communication between body-soul/ inner voice” as a kind of template, that the poetic outburst of the poet-lover is indeed an event of communication between him and his living inspiration, no matter that the latter is never going to read his poems since they would head into the wastepaper basket minutes after they come to exist.

Umberto Eco thinks that language use is for communication alone. One always writes for others, none of whom barring a few, one would ever get to know. The ancient Indian philosopher-poet, Bhartrihari, had a similar view, only that his reader could be distanced from him in terms of even place and time, quite a thing to say centuries ago. For Eco, the one who says that he writes for none but himself is not being honest. There is only one exception to it, he adds; when one writes his “shopping list”, one does not have anyone in his mind with whom to share it. It is a different matter that although they might never acknowledge it, some would be delighted to read shopping lists of others, for instance, the celebrities!

I am unable to agree with Eco on the shopping list. During my childhood (that was sixty years ago), in my village some members of the village “elite” (two or three families out of six hundred households) would not go to the miserable-looking grocery shop in the village to shop, but would ask a poor teen aged boy of their neighbourhood, or better, a pupil of the village “minor” school (from class IV to VII) from a poor family, to run to the grocer’s and get their stuff for them. The errand boy was never given a small mint for his effort; he wasn’t given money to pay the shopkeeper. The shopping arithmetic of errand boys, who could not afford private tuition which was very much there those days, was believed to be atrocious.  He could not be trusted to remember all the items needed for the household and the desired quantity of each. So the elite customer wrote lists and signed them at the bottom: neatly and unhurriedly - some are as fond of their signatures as a dictator is of the treasury of his state.  The shop keeper was supposed to pin all such lists, and at the end of a respectable period go to the elite customer’s house with these to receive payment. He would get his due on his first visit only if he was immensely lucky. Eco was surely unaware of such a mode of shopping. In any case, here is a shopping list that was written for a particular person. 

So the shopping list may not be a real counter-example to the eminent writer’ own general statement. Perhaps we must not take the “shopping list” so literally, although it was indeed this particular document that he had in mind. We could view it instead as a symbol of all those mundane and insignificant things one writes every day, which, in one’s reckoning, have no value for anyone. In any case, the fact remains that Eco immortalized the shopping list. As far as I know, before Eco, this little thing had never appeared in any discourse on communication.

SEMINAR ON CULINARY TERMS IN INDIAN LANGUAGES

In 2010, the Linguistics department of Aligarh Muslim University had organized a really off-beat seminar on the historical and socio-cultural aspects of culinary terms in Indian languages and I happened to be to be there at that time and happily joined that event there as a participant. The papers were informative and some were interesting as well, and the discussion of these was generally good. The few papers which dealt with the historical aspect of the terms did not really go beyond listing of the borrowed terms and their sources, but this was nothing unusual, considering that work on words in our languages borrowed from foreign sources has so far been nothing more than this. Some papers tended to discuss foods (and the discussion was almost always good), instead of food terms, neglecting that a linguistic term and the object it refers to are not the same thing. Obviously these are not directly related. For instance, there is no unicorn in the world of nature, but it is a meaningful term of English. There is no kokua or koko in nature but these words exist in Odia language, meaning a terrible, murderous creature. In the villages of Odisha grandmothers still try to frighten their grandchildren to sleep saying kokua would come if they don’t. The mind enjoys the phrase “roll a salepuri rasagulla (the cheese based sweet from the town called Salepur, widely known for this sweet) on the tongue”, whereas the tongue relishes rolling the rasagulla on it.   

When an object is borrowed from a different culture, it enters the target culture with its name, which is a linguistic object. A borrowed word embodies a fascinating cultural and linguistic story: from which language and under what conditions it was borrowed, how long it took to move from the periphery of acceptability to be fully accepted by the recipient culture and the language, and what form it took when it got nativized in both. Talking about the linguistic aspect alone, some fifty years ago, in Odia, potato was called bilaati aalu (potato from England) in coastal Odisha, but now, on account of the popularity of this vegetable it is called just aalu. Interestingly, tomato, which is as popular, is still called bilaati baaigana (brinjal from England) and never just baaigana. There is more to the contrast, but for the moment, let that story remain untold. As for some similarity, both vegetables are still excluded from the kitchen of the traditional temples, and from the discourse of naivedya (food to be offered to the deity) and prasaada (food after the offering) relating to these temples. Half a century ago a section of the population of Puri in Odisha used the word ceni, with a retroflex nasal, to refer to sugar, the word for which in the so-called “standard” Odia is cini, where the nasal was an alveolar, not a retroflex. In the Puri variety (called “Puri boli”) both the alveolar nasal (the consonant sound “n”) and its retroflex form occurred then, therefore it is interesting to note that the speakers used the non-standard form in this specific case. Similar observations apply to the difference between the initial vowels in these two words. Facts such as these in borrowing need an explanation, which would have a socio-cultural dimension as well. The ceni example is a case of borrowing from a variety of the same language - borrowing by Puri boli from standard Odia As of now, the facts mentioned above have not even been noted in scholarly discourse on borrowed words in Odia, which can be said to be due to the general neglect of language varieties other than the standard. There is very little discourse on culinary terms in our languages mainly because words are traditionally dealt with in terms of dictionary entries, which hardly do justice to the richness of their content. And then it may be noted that Samuel Johnsons do not write dictionaries these days.

It is possible that the neglect of scholarly interest by linguists (including lexicographers) in culinary terms reflects the non-serious attitude that people often have towards culinary discourse. Dining table talk is hardly about the dishes on the table, and even when the dishes do figure in the conversation, it is in a manner that is neither sincere nor serious. After enjoying a well cooked meal, one does praise the cooking and sometimes asks for the recipe, but all this is really politeness discourse, not culinary discourse, and as such requires no informative answer. If the guest insists on information about the recipe, etc., it is sometimes seen as condescending behavior on his part and is not liked.   

Well, it was really good the linguistics department of AMU thought of organizing a seminar on the much neglected topic of culinary terms.

REGARDING THE FIFA PLAYER OF THE YEAR 2012

It looks odd that during the process of selection of the choice of the Ballon d’Or or the FIFA player of the year, views of the people who would participate in the selection process, regarding who is the best candidate for the same and why, and related matters are expressed in public. Thanks to Jose Mourinho, Real Madrid's manager, this year it has happened in a manner probably never before, and his views have appeared in many newspapers, rather prominently in some, and this is true, not just of the national newspapers of India. Ever since Real Madrid won the La Liga a few months ago, he has been pitching for Cristiano Ronaldo, and pretty loudly too. But this piece is not about his views.

Even a cursory glance at the list of players who have won this award (in its present or its earlier form) would show that the winners have been mostly attacking midfielders and strikers – the goal scorers. There are hardly any defenders in the list, Fabio Cannavaro being only the second winner of this award, which he received in the World Cup year 2006. As for goalkeepers, the German goalkeeper, Oliver Kahn, won the Golden Ball award, given to the best player of the tournament in the 2002 World Cup, but the World Player of the year award eluded him. Rewarding goal scorers certainly reflects the popular perspective about the game: since goals decide matches, football is a goal scorers’ game. Seeing a beautiful goal scored (remember Maradona’s second goal against England in the 86 edition of the World Cup and Messi’s goal against Getafe FC in the Copa Del Rey semi final match in 2007?) is an aesthetic experience, as is seeing a defence-splitting pass that leads to a goal. A memorable one is  Maradona’s that knocked Brazil out of the 1990 World Cup and broke a million hearts (including mine!). In contrast, the defender’s game appears to be a spoil sport. He tries to break the rhythm of the attack and to dispossess an attacker of the ball, somehow, even by cynical fouls, and all this is not pleasing to the eye. There may be few exceptions. One was the Brazilian Cafu – it was a delight to see him racing along the flank from his own half deep into the opponent’s and crossing the ball to the strikers in the back area. But in one’s memory and in the collective memory, a great goal lingers as a delightful experience much longer than a daring Cafu run or a spectacular Shilton or Kahn save. Thus the goal scorer receives all the attention and the accolades from the public, being sometimes seen as the main cause of the victory of a team. Our case here is that whereas all this may be true to a considerable extent, there is indeed an exaggeration of the goal scorer’s contribution to a match. Football is a team game and when a match is won, the contribution of the defence is quite significant. Gone are the days when a team could undermine its defence and assert that it is their adversary in the match that should be concerned about defending. World Cup 1982 showed Brazil the inadequacy of this mindset of theirs.

For reasons of television coverage, we in India watch matches played in Europe, in particular, EPL and La Liga, but not in Latin America. So in a moment of luxury when an Indian football fan like me thinks in terms of who deserves the FIFA award in a particular year, he hardly thinks beyond Europe.  As for me, I think this year it should go to a goal keeper or a defender (including the defensive midfield defender). The performance of two players in these categories in  2011-12 season stands out most prominently: Andres Iniesta of Barcelona and Iker Casillas of Real Madrid. Andres Iniesta is a midfielder, but often plays rather defensively. In fact, he is one who can play as a defensive midfielder, central defender, and an attacking midfielder with equal ease and grace. He plays attractive football. Although not a prolific scorer, he has scored decisive goals in some very important matches. A brilliant play maker; he controls the midfield effectively and initiates many intelligent moves. His contribution to Spain’s retaining the European crown this summer was recognized when he was honoured as the best player of the tournament. Some weeks ago, he received the UEFA Best Player in Europe award. As goalkeeper, Iker Casillas’s contribution to Real Madrid’s winning La Liga 2011-12 and to Spain’s winning Euro 2012 is great. In fact, many consider him to be the best goalkeeper in the world today.

As I said, I feel it is high time FIFA gives the defenders and goalkeepers their due in terms of the World Player of the year award. This will be in proper recognition of the fact that football is a team game. As a spectator and a football lover, I will be happy if either Casillas or Iniesta get the award. I find it difficult to choose between them. May be for once FIFA should choose both!

"ONE COUNTRY ONE TEST"

…has the ring of an effective and memorable slogan. Whatever be the merit of the proposal (“one country one test”) this slogan refers to, it is a bad slogan, an irresponsible slogan; what is worse, it is potentially a dangerous slogan. I do not know for certain where this slogan originated – hopefully not in the concerned ministry of the government of India! - but very soon it became part of the Common Entrance Test (CET) discourse. Now, effective slogans tend to have a long life, which is said of a bad idea too. After some time, the context of such a slogan is forgotten, and users of the language start playing with it (not at all unexpected; linguists have told us that language use is characteristically creative) and new phrases, new slogans come into being. Suppose someday the language users substitute “test” by “language” – “one country one language”. Would it not be an entirely unacceptable slogan, as unacceptable as the idea it embodies?  

Much has been written about the advantages of a common admission test for engineering and medical undergraduate students in our country; it seems to be a reasonably good proposal in principle. One only hopes that there will be a careful review of it after about, say, five years of its implementation for possible remedial action or even some thorough overhauling, should that be felt necessary. The government’s proposal (based on the recommendations of a committee of a few academic administrators and bureaucrats) of taking into consideration the marks at the relevant school examination in some form for this test, is again, by no means unjustifiable in principle. However, during the first few years of the implementation of this proposal, careful annual monitoring is a must.

The professed intention behind the latter is to ensure that students do not neglect their school test and the expensive private tutorial system is discouraged which puts those who can afford it in a position of undue advantage, which is certainly unacceptable. Therefore the government is justified to take corrective steps in this regard. But the question is, are the proposals mentioned above the right solution, is it likely to be effective? We are quite skeptical. Our apprehension is that if anything, it will strengthen the tutorial system, which will now extend the domain of its operation right down to class X and even class IX. This apprehension is not hypothetical; a tutorial institute has already made an announcement precisely to this effect. There is very good ground for apprehension that the proposal would have precisely the opposite effect; instead of solving the problem, it will aggravate it.

Addressing a problem of school education at the stage of admission to the technical institutions is really dealing with it at the surface-most level. Most optimistically speaking, this approach can lead to very little, if at all. Tutorial system is nothing new; private tuition has always been there at the school level; it is just that it has now been organized almost as an industry with big money coming into it. Private coaching has been extended to the college level and even the post-graduate level in some states and that it has reached a pandemic stage and for all practical purposes has become a system of parallel education, sustained in part by the better among the school teachers, who neglect work at the school where they are employed. This is one of the factors that has contributed to the near collapse of the school, especially the public school, system. This has resulted in the exclusion of the poor and the lower middle class from reasonably good school education.

Only an incorrigible optimist or a thoroughly insensitive and irresponsible person would assert that the process of privatization of education can be reversed or considerably weakened in our country now. Today just as “bazaar notes” cannot be wished away, private coaching cannot be wished away too. And just as bazaar notes can be fought best by better quality bazaar notes, private tutorial institutes can be fought by public tutorial institutes of comparable quality. This is not even a new idea. Even in the sixties, provision for special coaching was made available in one or two government colleges in Odisha to some of those interested in preparing for the central services examinations (IAS, etc.). The coaching was not very successful partly because the teaching in the colleges was very good and the best faculty did not want to teach in the coaching classes as it was considered improper for them those days. Things have changed.

In the mid-eighties, the central government arranged for free special coaching for nine months for some selected SC/ST candidates for admission to the IITs and some other centrally-funded engineering colleges. Called the “Preparatory Course”, it comprised Mathematics, Physics Chemistry and English, and was offered at some of the IITs and was taught by the faculty of those IITs. This facility still exists. This is an excellent central government initiative and an excellent model for public tutorial schools. If the government really wants to help those who want to go for technical education and cannot afford coaching in private tutorial institutes – the poor and the lower middle class – one of the things it should do is multiply the Preparatory course model.

And it should not be very difficult since it is a proposal for extending an already existing facility. To start with, all those institutions (IITs, NITs, IIITs, etc.) that are and will become part of CET, must create this facility, and run it with as much seriousness as with which it is being done now in the IITs. This will make a huge difference to many students who cannot afford private coaching, and let it be noted that they will get much better training in these public coaching centres than in many expensive private coaching centres. Symbolic initiatives may have a place in the public sphere, but there is no alternative to meaningful initiatives that make a difference to the lives of the people.